Thoughts – Page 6 – Hannah Nicklin

a picture of charley at a wedding in a big blue fascinator and with champagne in hand. She's smiling.

A 1500m lake swim, 44km cycle, and a 9.4km run. On Sunday. Click here for the short story.

I meant to post all of this a week ago, giving me two weeks of fundraising time, but then I got knocked off my bike a bit, and hurt my wrist. The good news is that today the doctor gave me the all clear and said with a few day’s rest I should be totally fine to compete on Sunday. I’ll be doing my first olympic distance triathlon in Leeds. A swim in the lake in Roundhay Park, a cycle to Wetherby and back, and then 9 and half km around the park, running.

And although I do a lot of sport, I am actually doing this one for a person. For Charley. And I’m going to ask you for money again.

I’m sorry to ask you all just after running that marathon in June, but you can’t really control the kind of things that make you want to raise money in your life. And just around the time my friend John died, my cousin Charlotte (Charley) was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. She’s barely only a few years older than me, and badass; a lawyer from just near Doncaster, but she (and the rest of the family) were sent reeling from this news. It’s brought her and me and others of our generation – more easily pulled apart by distance and technology – closer, in a way. A sliver of silverish lining. But mostly it’s been massively too big to fit into our heads. Except for Charley. Who fundamentally, minute by minute, has to deal with being dealt the card ‘incredibly aggressive cancer, late 30s’.

Over email Charley shared a blog post with me in lieu of being able to express it herself. This stood out:

“Being a young woman diagnosed with a gynae cancer and losing your fertility as a result of it, can feel like triple whammy at times. There is something deeply personal about it – for me it stole my female organs, my fertility, my motherhood, my sexuality, my feminism, my hopes, my dreams, my confidence, my career and my future. It replaced those gifts with fear, uncertainty, and loss. If I don’t play it right, then it has the potential to steal my relationships, my job and my sanity. I think we all felt elements of this in bucket loads last week, but the important thing was that we were all trying to claw back the things we can.” (from here)

Charley has been undergoing chemo since her diagnosis, and dealing with one of the most aggressive cancers. Dealing. Like that’s a thing you can do. Anyway. I asked her if I could raise some money for her and she mentioned Ovacome – particularly for their support for younger women with the diagnosis. I wasn’t sure if I was recovered enough from an injury to do the triathlon so that’s why I’m so late in setting this up – but the doctor said if I rest up until Sunday I should be fine. So please, if you can, give money to Ovacome. And be aware of the symptoms of Ovarian Cancer (from the Ovacome site):

Bloating that is persistent and does not come and go

Difficulty eating and feeling full more quickly

Abdominal or pelvic pain that is experienced most days

These symptoms are frequently experienced by women, however when they are experienced frequently, persistantly and severely [please get checked up]

Sunday will be a bit tough. Especially with an injury. It will be nothing to Charley’s new definition of ‘tough’. She hears soon about how effective the chemo’s been. I wish I could ask for something that would make a difference to that.

Instead, if you can, donate here. Thanks.

Well, I did it. I’m sitting on the train back from what feels like 6 months of quite substantial things. Moving to London, having never really lived in a city. Running a marathon across a mountain. Passing my PhD viva. Making a solo show. Sustaining/scraping a living as a freelancer. And learning and performing 65-70 minutes worth of material for a 10 day run at Edinburgh Festival. I should feel proud, I expect. And in ways I am. But really all these are difficult in the anticipation, but once you get there, it’s just a case of putting one foot in front of the other, one word, or one line in front of the other, and trying to mean them.

The show itself was reasonably well received critically. A really intelligent 4 star review from Broadway Baby, 4 stars and a ‘hot show’ feature in the Scotsman, and a couple of lovely mentions from Lyn Gardner in the Guardian. Some very generous lovely tweets from people who saw it (some screencapped below). People who grasped my hand, who cried and hugged me, who said ‘we baby boomers are retiring, now, we who got our education for free, well we’ve got time on our hands now, and we’re fighting for you’, people who sent me messages talking about how talking about being allowed to be afraid is ok was very important to them, that made them think about the Troubles in Ireland, about a couple who lived between two police officers in during the Steel strikes – one who was up for the fight the other “the kind of police officer that was more like a social worker”, the older woman who told me about how her family had been victimised by the far right for years “actually, they are scum” she told me in reaction to a scene in the show where I talk about my difficulty with slogans. An senior arts council officer who told me afterwards he couldn’t work out why it was moving, that the quote of my flyer ‘unexpectedly moving’ was just it.

Some people didn’t like it. Some walked out with hardly a glance as I handed them something to take away with them. Others fidgeted, sighed in frustration, fell asleep. sat in stony silence when I show a funny picture of a funny jumper, and spent the whole time tapping into their mobile phone. I have become a much better behaved audience member after seeing how much you see and hear from that side.

And the show? I’m proud of it, I think. It does what I wanted it to. It fits together right and is as finely balanced as I could make it. I’d like to get it out to people who might more naturally side with the police if they were asked who ‘us’ and ‘them’ is for them. I did a lot of learning about performing. A lot about how each night is different, about when an audience doesn’t know you think you did it better last night, I started getting stubborn, not hurt, by people who demonstrably weren’t engaged, and that was a useful energy in that moment. I learnt about how tired I get, how much else I can sensibly do in a day, and that actually, things that engage my body and not my mind are fundamental to my being able to work well. Also the nerves of the first night make it feel like the best thing you ever did, and you won’t hit that again, but it’s ok. I felt like that anyway. Also, next show, make one that doesn’t require writing a thing out for every individual audience member. (spoiler).

And finally – massively supported again by Alex Kelly, technically, theatrically, and emotionally, throughout the two weeks. Thanks, Alex.

Where next? The lovely Gloria of Little Mighty is going to be booking me a tour for Autumn/Spring ’13/’14 (mostly the latter), and there’s been some other interest in it that might give it a life in other ways. More info if it actually happens.

Otherwise, I go into a couple of new interesting projects in October – as well as the Digital R&D project, I’m going to be working alongside an artist to help make a show about teenage girls and the internet (I’m sort of a digital/arts consultant artist), might get to work as producer on an exciting thing I can’t name yet, and am going to be making over at least a week and a half a NEW SHOW. One that this time is angry. And that will contain punk music. Stay tuned. And in the meantime here’s a screen cap of a section of the tweets about ACW on Twitter. I only know Jamie in real life, and Catherine as a brill thoughtful reviewer, the rest are genuine audience members. Imagine! People who paid to see me say things.

Category: Thoughts

My Cousin Charley

A Conversation With My Father, post Edinburgh Festival 2013.